Novel details aftermath of banker's disappearance

Joel Fuetsch Pehanick wrote the book, 'Porch Light Burning,' which is a 'mostly true' novel that includes the disappearance of Reno banker Roy Frisch and the trials in which he was scheduled to be the star witness.

The disappearance of banker Roy Frisch on a cold night in 1934 remains one of Reno's most enduring mysteries, but it is the rest of the story that has captivated Joel Fuetsch Pehanick for decades.

After all, it's the rest of the story that directly touched her family and prompted her to write the book, "Porch Light Burning."

"I would hear the term, 'the trials' every once in a while when I was a kid, when my parents would get together their Nevada friends and family," Pehanick said. "But whenever they realized I was listening, they quickly changed the subject."

As a curious youngster, she also found some yellowed newspaper clippings in the back of her mother Alice's closet. At the time, she didn't understand their meaning. Years later, as she prepared for college, her parents let her in on the family story.

'The trials'

"The trials," were the three mail fraud trials of William Graham and James McKay - often referred to as the overlords of the underworld in Reno in the 1930s. Frisch, the head cashier of the Riverside Bank, was to be the key government witness against Graham and McKay, but he vanished in Reno just before the first trial was set to begin.

Frisch's whereabouts - or, as most believe, his final resting place - have been the subject of speculation ever since. The FBI, for one, believes that Frisch was kidnapped by notorious gangster Baby Face Nelson and his accomplice John Paul Chase, murdered and dumped in a Nevada mine shaft.

Still, for decades after his disappearance, Frisch's mother and, later, other family members, left the porch light of their Court Street home turned on.

Author Pehanick, through years of research, doesn't dispute the FBI's version of events. But her book, which is subtitled "A Mostly True Novel," doesn't focus on Roy Frisch after his disappearance. Instead, it focuses on the role of Frisch's assistant cashier and best friend, Joe Fuetsch, her father.

It was Fuetsch who became the government's key witness in the three trials that spread out over four years. (The first two trials ended in hung juries, with the third, in 1938, resulting in the conviction of Graham and McKay, who were each sentenced to nine years in federal prison.

Pehanick changed the names of all the principals for her book. She decided to make the book a novel, rather than straight nonfiction, to challenge herself as a writer.

"At the time, I was in a writing class," she said. "When I walked into that class, I didn't think I could do anything but nonfiction. But, the more I learned in the class, the more I realized I wanted to do scenes and dialogue and character development, so that's how I ended up making it a novel. But 80 percent, I would say, is true. I followed the story line. I never deviated from the story line."

The story line

The story line starts inside the Arthur Spitherman Bank and Hotel, where cashiers John Frank (Frisch) and Lou Hoffman (Fuetsch) come to discover some seemingly nefarious activities going on involving out-of-state investors, horse racing and gambling. Basically, investors are being bilked in a confidence scheme. The common denominators in the activities are Reno casino owners/gamblers Elliot Henderson (Graham) and Blade O'Leary (McKay).

Once federal authorities have the goods, Henderson and O'Leary are among those indicted. The bank's cashier, Frank, who witnessed investors withdrawing large sums of money, would be called to testify as to what he saw.

But then he disappeared and his assistant, Hoffman, became the key witness, spending four years under the protection of federal authorities. The story is largely told through the eyes of Hoffman and his wife, Kathleen.

For Pehanick, telling the story became a passion, but one that stretched over 18 years as she balanced raising a family of her own and other "real life" matters with her desire to research and write.

She poured through newspaper accounts of the trial, then advanced to FBI files, personal interviews and the National Archives for information.

"The research to me was just fascinating," she said. "The news clips, the interviews, and then the FBI stuff I got through the Freedom of Information Act. Between the National Archives and FBI, I probably have at least 2,000 pages."

The Reno Evening Gazette, one of Reno's two papers at the time, provided her a wealth of information with daily coverage of all three trials.

"I think it was the most-covered event, as far as a special trial, that the paper had ever done," she said.

Real life

She said the research process helped her better understand what her parents went through.

"It made me realize how difficult that four years was on my parents, and really how difficult it was for them for the rest of their lives," she said.

Her father was convinced from the first day that Frisch had been kidnapped and murdered, and always felt guilty that he hadn't done more to keep his friend safe. The trials were also hard on her mother, who, in addition to caring for the couple's young children, also was in court every day.

After the final trial, the Fuetsches eventually moved and settled in California.

Graham and McKay went to prison but were eventually pardoned by President Harry S. Truman and returned to Reno.

Their paths did cross at least one more time, Pehanick said.

"My dad met Graham on a plane flight in the 1940s," she said. "They were sitting next to each other. They both had ulcers at the time, so Bill Graham gave my dad this ulcer medication and my mom threw it out. She didn't want to have any part of it."